The Old Dragon's Head

by Justin Newland

  “A fine lady,” Luli murmured, echoing his innermost thoughts.

  Precious, Strange, Granny Dandan and the other servants wailed and beat their chests. The boy, Qitong, filled the sleeve of his robe with tears. The caterwaul was like the dread demons of the underworld. Luli moved like she was walking underwater and had by some miracle acquired the ability to breathe like a baby in the womb. She said something to him. It sounded like, “Come and see me for the letters,” but in his present state of mind, the words made no sense.

  “Thank you Luli,” he mouthed a reply and she was gone, out of the door. Feng’s world was leaving with her and with the spirit of his adoptive mother. They were all leaving until he was alone. This was an end, but of what exactly? He cried hot tears for the loss of his father, his mother and now, the loss of who he’d always thought he was. He was someone else, an imposter. That was the greatest shock. He couldn’t feel a thing, even if he gripped a hot poker. The outside world didn’t exist: it was replaced by an empty, shallow feeling. The servants’ wailing was like a soft thrum of rain against the window pane.

  In the gathering gloom, he had a vague awareness of lights bobbing around in the inner courtyard of the house. There were uniformed men carrying lanterns. A knock on the door. He froze. He could hear his heart thumping against his chest. What did the knocking want of him? Perhaps, in a moment of compassion, the gods had sent his parents back to him, to nurse him back to health. In this weird dream state, he heard the indistinct sound of the door click open, heard Precious say, “Commandant.”

  That name stung him into action. Tung? What did he want? What was he doing here? Had Gang sent him to evict them?

  Tung must have asked a question because the next thing he heard Precious say was, “Yes, Master Feng is still here. Come in.”

  That startled him. He smelled a rat. This was Gang’s doing. The commandant had come to arrest him. How do I know that?

  The lanterns burst into the house. Heavy footsteps. Swords unsheathed. Shouting, “Where is he?” and “Grab him.”

  They were the spiders, he, the fly. Thankfully, he knew where to hide. He kissed his mother on the forehead and slid away from her bedside. He swept through the house as silent as a ghost and dived into his hiding place. He would be safer there than in the Purple Forbidden City.

  Soldiers scurried past him, opening closets, hatches and wardrobes, moving systematically around the various courts and rooms of the large residence. They looked in the yard and he even heard them searching the well. Cramped and uncomfortable, at least he was away from prying eyes. Nearby, he heard the commandant talking to Precious. Poor dear, she was distraught. How could they conduct a search for him in a house of two corpses? The servants must be delirious at this public intrusion on their private grief.

  “We’ve looked everywhere. So where did he go?” Tung demanded.

  “He was here, I tell you,” she choked through a veil of tears.

  “Well, he’s not now,” Tung said, as irascible as ever. “I must warn you. Do not venture outside until dawn.”

  “Why’s that?” Precious asked.

  “By order of the magistrate, there is a dusk to dawn curfew.”

  “A curfew?”

  “Yes,” Tung said. “Listen, the Emperor’s spies are everywhere. If you see or hear anything suspicious, let us know, talking of which, thank you for telling me about Feng. What a shock. A charlatan. To think he’s been deceiving us for so long. Because of you, the truth is out: the missing son of General Tiande. We need to apprehend Master Feng. I can’t tell you everything, but suffice to say, he is a dangerous man. If you see him, do not approach him. He may be one of the co-conspirators, a spy of the Jianwen Emperor.”

  “So, are you saying… that Feng was complicit… in his father’s murder?” Precious asked, between sobs.

  If that was what they thought, he was in deep trouble.

  “We don’t know,” the commandant replied. “That’s why we need to question him. Don’t worry, we’ll find and interrogate him.”

  “I hope so,” Precious murmured. “There was mention of a reward.”

  “Of course, the prince will repay your commendable loyalty,” the commandant added, his reply laced with scorn, “Come to the Yamen in the morning for your five taels of silver.”

  What? Five taels of silver. Was that the tally of all her years of service and loyalty? The ignominy.

  He had nowhere to turn. Think! Where could he go?

  Luli’s parting words popped into his mind, ‘come and see me about the letters.’ Yes, the letters. There had to be something in his father’s letters that could undo these false allegations and prove his innocence. Once the militia had finished their search, he would wait for dusk and sneak out under cover of darkness. He would find refuge at Luli’s Po Office. Anywhere to escape this awful place. How could Precious betray him? He felt sick in the stomach.

  CHAPTER 22

  The Flow of Ch’i

  Through the long nights of winter,

  Through the long days of summer, shall I be alone.

  Long years will pass, and then I myself

  Will to my husband’s grave wing my way.

  THE SHI KING (BOOK OF ODES)

  Luli often mused on the late afternoon shadows cast by the snow-capped Yanshan Mountains. They reminded her of who she was – a simple widow – and who she’d lost that dreadful day – her husband, Heng. It brought to mind what might have been, if he had lived. What if there had been the patter of little feet – other than Ru’s? Even after all these years she welled up and wiped a tear from her eye.

  She had observed the departing shadows of an old and well-respected couple – Park and Lan. They reminded her of Ru and of the suffering he was enduring at the hands of that scoundrel Gang. The prison guards had prevented her from visiting him. She had left them with food for him, but would they give it to him, or scoff it themselves? Ru was fast becoming a shadow of his former self and that was terrifying her.

  Despite these disappointments, she’d made her choice. She trusted in Heaven and Heaven had to save her son. It just had to.

  Luli wandered into the market, surrounded by the clatter of the stalls closing at the end of the day’s trading. In the trees, a flock of small birds gathered, preparing to roost for the night. On the far side of the market square, weary soldiers marched in formation, their leader barking orders. She pulled up her collar against a stiff breeze blowing off the Bohai Sea, picking up the chill from the snow lying in patches on the ground.

  Her hands played over the surface of her favourite phoenix-motif fan, a gift long ago from Wing, the old Dragon Master. In one swift movement, she pulled off a strand of cotton that had worked itself loose. As she turned for home, Zetian approached her. She must have appeared disconsolate, because her neighbour asked,

  “What’s the matter? It’s Ru, isn’t it? Tell me. How is he bearing up?”

  Luli shook her head. “Not well. He’s suffering, Zeti,” she began in earnest. “The guards beat him and deprive him of food. Worse, they humiliate him. I must prove his innocence – otherwise that awful magistrate will chop off his hand or something worse. It’ll drive him over the edge for good.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Zetian said, pressing her hands together in prayer.

  “Thank you for your concern.”

  “Not at all,” Zetian replied, “let me know if we can help in any way.”

  “I will,” she said.

  From across the market came a clanging sound, followed by a hollow cry. Then a soldier yelled, “By order of the commandant, there’s a curfew.”

  A company of soldiers jogged into the market square, harrying the stallholders who were packing away their goods, pushing and prodding everyone else.

  Major Renshu shouted out, “Move on. Everyone, go back to your homes, or else.”

  The soldie
rs worked in pockets, singling out small groups of men, who were hauled off by their collars, despite vehement protestations of innocence. Four soldiers were dragging a victim kicking and screaming right by where Luli was standing.

  One complained, “Let me go. What have I done to deserve this?”

  “We know who you are,” the soldier muttered, adding a kick in the ribs for good measure. “You’re late for your appointment.”

  “What? Who with?” The man yelled back.

  “Thousand Cuts Liu,” the soldier said and then guffawed. That shut the man up.

  This was serious. The dusk bell rang out. She couldn’t afford to get trapped in this spider’s web. She had to leave.

  The slow moon was up. Turning for home, she caught a glimpse of the moonbeams reflecting on the Great Wall. In the half-light, she glimpsed a feature in the Great Wall – a face, or rather the profile of a face. She blinked and looked again. There, in the midst of the shadows, she saw women’s faces, young and old, frowns and smiles, wrinkled and smooth-skinned. She had seen them before on the wall outside their home, the ones Ru had pointed out to her.

  There were more faces, spread out along the Great Wall. With her trained eye, she saw faces high up near the top of the wall, while others were low down, nearer ground level. She was about to turn away when she stopped. It was as if someone tapped her on the shoulder and whispered in her ear, ‘You’ve missed the most important thing, look again.’

  She did. How had she not spotted it the first time? All the faces pointed in the same direction.

  Eastwards.

  What did it mean?

  Since ancient times, the Laolong had transmitted its power through the wall, keeping out the Tartars, Mongols and the other yin barbarians, protecting the yang Emperor and keeping his people safe within the confines of the Zhongguo.

  The faces always pointed the same way as the flow of ch’i in the wall – the same direction as the Laolong, the Old Dragon. In ancient times, the flow was eastwards, meaning that the head of the dragon rose in the mountains in the western provinces and his tail sat in the most eastern end point of the wall, which – until twenty years ago – was the Yanshan Mountains. That was when General Tiande extended it to the pale waves of the Bohai Sea.

  So, if the flow of ch’i was eastwards – from west to east – why on earth was the new, most eastern end of the wall, named the Old Dragon’s Head?

  If the flow was eastwards, it should have been called the Old Dragon’s Tail.

  But it wasn’t.

  Why not?

  This was a supernatural question and there was only one person she could think of who might know the answer. She rushed off to the Temple of the Eight Immortals.

  CHAPTER 23

  The Laundry Wagon

  Man is born for uprightness.

  If a man loses his uprightness and yet lives,

  His escape from death is the effect of great good fortune.

  THE ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS

  Feng waited for the sound of the first night watch to dissipate, until all he could hear was his own shallow breathing. He lifted the coffin lid and slid it onto the floor. It had been an effective hiding place, but foul and claustrophobic. And not for the squeamish. Squeezed next to his adoptive father’s corpse, there was barely room to breathe. Fearful of moving lest he alert those searching for him, his body had almost merged with Park’s.

  His limbs creaking and groaning, he climbed into the annex and brushed himself down. He mouthed a silent prayer of thanksgiving to Park for helping him one last time.

  At least he was free. Keeping to the corners, he crept through the inner courtyard, which was swathed in moon shadows. He trod slowly over a slippery patchwork of snow and ice. With every step nearer the outer gate, another tie to his home in the Yamen loosened and fell away – his bedroom where he grew up, his father’s study and his mother’s dressing table… he felt light, keen and acute, nearer to the Way, the Tao. He had this ineffable feeling that he was leaving home for the very last time.

  Not only did he smell like a dead man, something had died in him, too. He had no family of his own, none that recognised him or knew of his existence. What or who was he then? What did Tung call him? A dangerous spy? A conspirator? No, he was Xu Yingxu, the son of the famous General Xu Da. He had to prove it. He had one hope: his father’s letters. How ironic, he was leaving the house of two dead people, only for his life to become dependent on letters written by a third. His ancestors were conspiring against him.

  How could he reach Luli’s Po Office in the midst of a curfew? The militia were out in force arresting anyone who looked at all suspicious; he, dressed in white mourning robes and smelling like a skunk, was about as conspicuous as a volcanic eruption. The magistrate’s residence, in the administrative district of the Yamen, was in the middle of the most fortified garrison in the Zhongguo. As a last thought, he tucked Park’s deathbed instructions into a small, sealed lacquer box, which he secreted back in an inner pocket of his robe. He sighed, dismayed that that was all that remained of his parents’ memory.

  Near the outer doorway, he heard snoring. Huh. Qitong was asleep again. Some gatekeeper he was. Step by step, Feng edged by him. The boy awoke.

  “Master,” he said, stifling a yawn.

  “Shhh!” Feng pressed his finger to the boy’s lips. “I have to go. Stay here.”

  The boy roused himself. With a shake of the head, he whispered, “Master, if you leave, I’ll not be welcome here anymore. Let me come with you.”

  Feng thought a moment. He liked the boy. Qitong reminded him of himself when he was that age: precocious, impulsive and quick-witted. So he replied, “Why not? Come on then, follow me.”

  The boy nodded and Feng glanced into the street. A rumble of wheels; something was coming around the corner. He hauled Qitong back and they hid behind the gate. A covered wagon trundled into view. Two men sat on a bench seat. One was holding a lantern, while trying not to fall asleep. The other grasped the reins of two grumpy oxen, whose breath smoked in the chilly night air.

  The laundry wagon on its nightly round was collecting dirty linen from residences in the Yamen. As it passed by, he and Qitong leapt through the crude curtain at the back of the wagon and dived headlong into a pile of dirty laundry. If the driver had seen them, the wagon would grind to a stop at any moment. He held his breath… and… it rolled on. The back of the wagon was dark and the linen was damp and smelly. What did he care? His escape to the future had begun.

  The wagon halted at various places, picking up more soiled linen, which the drivers chucked on top of the pile. The stench was obnoxious. When the oxen started puffing and panting, Feng guessed the wagon was ascending the ramp at the Zhendong Gate. By the time it reached the wall road, the oxen were bellowing and snorting like a couple of demons.

  The wagon was ushered through two checkpoints and then headed towards the main laundry situated in Ninghai Fortress, a stone’s throw inland from the Laolongtou. Ninghai was the commandant’s headquarters, so it was as heavily fortified as the Shanhaiguan Fortress. If this was karma, Feng didn’t think it was making it an easier for him to escape.

  A stern voice rang out into the night. “Halt. Who goes there?”

  Feng recognised the tone: it was Cui. He prayed the old campaigner would pay more attention to his creaking bones than two interlopers in the back of the wagon.

  “Who are you guarding? The Emperor?” the driver replied.

  “Big ears, don’t you know this is the first night of a curfew?” Cui was having none of it. “No, obviously you don’t,” he added with a sardonic air.

  “Listen,” the driver replied. “During the day, these grade one Confucian mandarins are as solemn as the Buddha himself. Yet see them after the dusk watch, they’re drinking warm wine, entertaining the dancing girls and soiling the bed sheets with the produce of clouds and rain.”


  “You don’t need to tell me,” Cui complained. “But I still need to inspect your load. There are dangerous fugitives at large and you never know where they might be hiding.”

  This was ominous. Cui might be old, but he was clearly no fool. If he searched the wagon, they’d be caught. Feng had to think and act quickly.

  “It’s dirty linen, not explosives,” the driver moaned. “Come on, little emperor, it’s late. Let us pass, eh?”

  While the drivers argued with the guards, Feng had a moment to think. He prodded Qitong and hissed, “Move. Fast.”

  “But master…” the boy replied.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Your clothes.”

  “What about…?” he muttered. Then he realised. He was still wearing the white of mourning. He would be conspicuous – even in the moon shadows. “Never mind, I have an idea. Follow me.” He slipped out the back of the wagon. Using both hands, he scooped up liberal doses of grease and mud from the wagon’s axle and smeared them on his robes.

  Cui’s heavy footsteps resounded on the stone road, heading towards them.

  Quick, think! Protruding gamely above the far side of the wall were several vertical bamboo poles. A scaffold. Heaven had smiled on him. He leapt over the battlements like a cat and crouched on a bamboo platform. Qitong was right behind him.

  Hidden behind the wall, Feng listened as Cui opened the back of the wagon and searched through the laundry. It was karma. They’d done it. He hadn’t seen them.

  From the vantage point of the platform, Feng could see the plain extending beyond the fortress to the land of the Blue Wolf. He might be free, but his predicament had not improved. Luli’s Po Office lay in Shanhai village outside the western wall of the fortress. How was he going to go there from where he was, outside the eastern wall? In the near distance to the south, the waxing moon cast a dim light on the waves of the Bohai Sea. Yes, that was it.